


Just Say Goodnight (I'm Already Down)

by nomadicbeard



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers 4, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Vormir, YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT'S COMING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 04:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14633682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomadicbeard/pseuds/nomadicbeard
Summary: Among the ashes of Vormir, Steve has to make a terrible decision.“The Soul Stone requires a sacrifice, to see whether a person is prepared to wield it,” the Red Skull says from behind Steve. “A soul for the universe, Captain, are you willing to make the sacrifice?”





	Just Say Goodnight (I'm Already Down)

**Author's Note:**

> First of all this is inspired by this heartwrenching post on tumblr: http://shaliara.tumblr.com/post/173842939649/what-if-they-had-the-gauntlet-back-and-gather-the
> 
> It haunted me so much that I decided that the only way to work out my emotions was through writing out the scene. 
> 
> I cried while writing this, fair warning. 
> 
> First work in the Marvel fandom? Hell yeah! Of course I made it an angst fest.
> 
> Title from Particles by Olafur Arnalds and Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir

The weight of the infinity gauntlet is heavy on Steve’s hand.   
  


Five stones glimmer in the golden grooves: space, time, power, mind, reality. The taste of victory is elusive on his tongue, power singing and racing across his body. 

  
No wonder Thanos was intent on wielding all six of the stones, this electricity, this universal force is addictive, it makes Steve’s head whirl.

   
They materialise into a cold, grey world. Ash sifts around them, Steve can see flashes of the world before his eyes, courtesy of time and space thrumming through his veins. What it was before: a thriving and bustling hub and what it is now: wasteland forevermore. 

   
Beside him, Tony coughs, stifling the noise with his hand. The air is dusty, an untouched feel of an abandoned place to it. His eyes turn narrow and assessing, peering out to the horizon. 

   
“This is where Nebula said the soul stone would be,” Steve says, pointing to the mountainous rise in front of them. 

   
Tony frowns, “This seems ridiculously simple. Doesn’t this seem simple to you?”

   
Steve dismisses Tony’s worries in the privacy of his own mind. Whatever lies in their way, this is the last obstacle. One more stone, then everything can be set right. He’ll see Bucky again. He’ll see Sam again. T’Challa, Groot, Wanda. 

   
Steve imagines the soft creases of Tony’s smile when he sees Peter Parker again and Steve knows that no price is too high to pay for the Soul Stone. 

   
They start to walk towards the base of the mountain. The wind whips around Steve’s ears, blowing his hair into disarray. “I should really get a haircut,” he admits.

   
Tony looks over to him, raising his eyebrows. “I don’t know, blond flowing locks are a good look on you,” he teases. 

   
Steve laughs and god, he has missed this. Despite everything they’ve been through, the intensity of their relationship, they’re still able to fall back into old patterns so easily. Tony’s smile is blinding, despite the deep worry-lines on his face. His hair isn’t fairing much better than Steve’s own, the haphazard sprawl giving him the appearance of a mad scientist. He meets Steve’s eyes, and Steve’s breath catches in his throat.His heart is thumping our a peculiar rhythm and his stomach tingles, freefalling. 

   
Maybe, after all is said and done, Steve should ask Tony on a date. 

   
“Well, here’s a face I hoped to never see again,” Steve’s blood freezes at the voice, red flashing before his eyes.

   
He turns slowly, only to be confronted with the face of someone he thought was long dead. 

   
Tony’s the first to react, “Are you fucking kidding me is that–“

   
“Red Skull,” Steve says, still not taking his eyes off the cloaked apparition in front of him. 

   
The Red Skull laughs, and Steve’s gauntleted hand closes into a fist. He could finish it, right here right now. Just a simple thought and the Skull doesn’t have to be anything more than grains of dust on the wind. 

   
Tony grabs at the gauntlet, and for one, impossible moment, Steve senses him. The Mind Stone gleams, and Steve can feel the panicked touch of Tony’s thoughts. _Slow down._

   
The Red Skull laughs, and Steve wants to punch him and keep on punching him until no sound comes out of him anymore. 

   
“Your friend is right, _Captain_ ,” the Skull says, with derision. “If you want the Soul Stone, you have to keep me alive.”

   
Steve shakes his head, “I killed you. You died, right in front of me.” 

   
“I did not die, rather I was sent to this godforsaken wasteland to guard another infinity stone. Condemned to a life time of boredom,” his gaze lands on Tony and he smiles, a horrific sight. “Although this, this is rather fun. I will take you to the place. Come.”

   
Steve falls into step behind his enemy as they ascend the last of the mountain. They turn a corner and suddenly there is a precipice, a huge drop stretching far down to the ashy ground below. Two huge pillars of carved rock stand either side of the drop, like an altar of some long-forgotten religion.

   
Steve turns to the Red Skull, confused. “Where’s the Soul Stone?”

   
The Red Skull looks beyond Steve, to the edge of the drop “Here we are, do what needs to be done.”

   
Steve is close to throttling his enemy just to get answers out of him when he hears an aborted wheeze behind him, it sounds too much like a sob. 

   
He turns and sees Tony, standing on the edge of the drop, peering down into nothingness. “You know, some days I really wonder why the hell you picked me of all people.” His voice is thick, hoarse and it sounds like he is dancing along the edge of tears. 

   
Steve takes a step closer, pulls Tony back from the precipice and spins him around to face Steve. “Tony, what are you talking about.”

   
Tony sighs, a defeatist exhale. “I talked to Nebula, Thanos brought her sister, Gamora, to Vormir. Did you know that?”

   
Steve still can’t make heads or tails of what Tony’s saying. “What?”

   
“Thanos and Gamora left for Vormir, Thanos came back alone. Nebula had a theory but I was really hoping that she was wrong,” Tony’s babbling, now, his gaze fixed on a point beyond Steve’s shoulder. “She wasn’t wrong, was she?”

   
“Tony–“ Steve starts, before he’s interrupted. 

   
“The Soul Stone requires a sacrifice, to see whether a person is prepared to wield it,” the Skull says from behind Steve. “A soul for the universe, Captain, are you willing to make the sacrifice?”

   
“What sacrifice?” Steve asks. He’d do it in a heartbeat, throw himself off the drop. There’s no price too high to pay for the universe.

   
“You have less brains than I thought, the sacrifice of a loved one, of course.” The sneer in the Red Skull’s words feels like a death blow. 

   
Steve looks at Tony, tears now running freely down his lined face, and suddenly Steve understands _._

   
There is one price that is too high to pay, and the universe just asked it of him. 

   
“No,” Steve says, taking an involuntary step back. “No. No. No.”

   
Tony smiles, thin and watery. “You know when Natasha first said that you loved me, I didn’t believe her.”

   
Steve’s traitorous heart is a thumping roar, a scream of _no no no_ with every heartbeat. 

   
“Even so, I volunteered to come to Vormir for a reason. If there was the slightest chance that I could be the sacrifice, I wasn’t about to have anybody else’s blood on my hands.”

   
Tony’s eyes are filled with tears. Steve’s are dry, frozen in shock. 

   
“You get the Soul Stone now Steve, and it’s all over. You can bring back everyone, Sam, Barnes, Sharon, Peter, Pepper, Wanda, T’Challa. Everybody lives, in exchange for one death. That’s more than fair.”

   
Steve shakes his head, “It’s not fair,” he says, his throat closing in on him. 

   
“Steve,” Tony says. “It has to be you.”

   
“I love you,” Steve says, words he was saving for another time. Another future. A lifetime that they don’t get to have now. 

   
Tony laughs, and Steve wants to bottle that sound and listen to it on repeat forever. He wants to hear how it echoes through Tony’s chest. He wants to hear how it ages, through the years, maturing like fine wine. He wants to hear it as the last thing when he goes to sleep and the first thing when he wakes up. 

   
“I love you too, Steve,” Tony says softly and something snaps in Steve’s chest and suddenly he’s holding his breath, staving off tears. “But we’ve talked about this.”

   
“No,” Steve says, as if the single word could stop the flow of time. 

   
“It has to be you,” Tony repeats stepping closer and letting his hand trail down Steve’s arm, until he takes the gauntlet in one hand, “we agreed.”

  
“No,” Steve says, turning away, unable to accept it. 

   
“You..” 

   
“No!” Steve insists, his back to Tony, tears making his vision hazy. He can’t, he refuses. This can’t be how their story ends. “There should be another way.”

   
Warmth at his back, the steady thump of a heartbeat against his own. Tony rests his cheek on Steve shoulder as they breathe in tandem for a few moments. A stolen moment of intimacy that they never got to have. “You know there isn’t,” Tony breathes out quietly. 

   
Steve squeezes his eyes shut, tears finally escaping as his chest moves in great heaving sobs. “You can’t ask me to do this.”  


   
“Shhh,” Tony says, gripping tightly onto Steve’s shoulder, “It’s okay.”

  
Steve draws in a breath. Not enough air. Never enough air. “Tony…” he chokes out. Tony steps away then grabs Steve’s face, bringing him close.

   
“Look at me,” Tony says quietly, and Steve looks. He sees brilliant brown eyes boring into Steve’s own, a face criss-crossed with the memory of a thousand emotions. He smells oil and grease and the last of an expensive cologne that he knows Tony doesn’t even like. He feels the calluses and scars on the hand that holds him, and he senses the faint touch of Tony’s mind, brimming with something that Steve is too terrified to name. 

   
Tony closes his eyes, brings Steve’s forehead to his own. “Focus,” he whispers, his breath ghosting across Steve’s lips. “Breathe.”  


   
Steve keeps his eyes open, intent on capturing everything he can. 

   
“Walk with me,” it’s so quiet that Steve isn’t sure whether Tony said it, or whether he’s getting it directly from Tony’s mind, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. 

   
A shuffle, a slow march to doom and they’re standing at the edge. Tony grabbing on to the front of Steve’s uniform. He reaches down and takes Steve’s gauntleted hand, placing it over his own heart. Steve can hear the faint whir of the arc reactor, can feel the numbered beats of Tony’s heart. Alive and strong.

   
“It will be okay,” Tony whispers, and his eyes are magnets, sucking Steve in. Bright with their own tears and a love that Steve can’t unsee. Steve reaches a hand up to Tony’s face, slowly dragging a thumb along one cheekbone. 

   
“It is time,” Tony’s words fan across Steve’s lips, and Steve can’t stop him. 

   
“Let me go,” Tony whispers, then takes a step backwards. 

   
He hangs there in the air for a single second, before plummeting out of sight. 

   
Something feral works its way out of Steve’s throat, a scream of loss so potent that he can feel worlds shatter across time and space. Reality itself splinters, the gauntlet vibrating with heat. 

   
A sixth stone appears in the empty placeholder and everything clicks into place. 

   
Steve drops to his knees, the might of the universe roaring through him, threatening to rip him away. 

   
A faint voice calls from the orange stone, a gentle caress across his burning soul. _You go and save everyone. Like you always do._

   
_Avenge_ , Steve thinks, raising his hand and filling the universe with light. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback of any kind is greatly appreciated. This is unbetaed so if you spot any grammar mistakes/awkward phrasing/bad characterisation please let me know. 
> 
> If you're interested in more of my general stevetony shenanigans you can find me on tumblr at: nomadicbeard.tumblr.com


End file.
